Ma Bohème
by Leandra
Summary: Moulin Rouge Slash... Christian gave Satine a promise. He has written their story down.. but he promised her somehting else on that dreadful opening night of Spectacular, Spectacular...he promised her to go with his life...


1 Ma Bohème  
  
2  
  
Author: Lea  
  
Category: Moulin Rouge Slash  
  
Characters: Christian / Arthur  
  
Rating: will be NC-17 I suppose  
  
Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge and it's characters belong to the fabulous Baz Luhmann! Baz, if you need a dramaturge, an assistant or a production manager, I therefore offer my services! Arthur – though I would love to own him – doesn't belong to me.  
  
Note: (Please read!) Arthur, as some of you may find out, is Arthur Rimbaud. He was born in 1854 and died in 1891 after the amputation of his cancerous leg, a long time before the story of the Moulin Rouge takes place. So please leave me my literary freedom.  
  
He was one of the most famous poets of symbolism and came to Paris in 1871 after having sent a letter to the well known French poet Paul Verlaine, who invited him to Paris, not knowing, that the poet Verlaine thought of as a "relative soul" was a ragged, dirty boy of seventeen years. Verlaine and Rimbaud tumbled into a chaotic, passionate relationship, despite Verlaine´s young wife Mathilde. They both fled Paris to go on a travel through Europe, visiting cities like London and Bruxelles. Their relationship was very futile for both of their literary works. After they broke up / or better, were separated, Arthur, who was now nearly 20 wrote his highly acclaimed verse-free text "A Season in Hell" where he put his relationship with Verlaine in metaphors.  
  
Rimbaud spoke of the derangement of all the senses, meaning a state, where the poet becomes a seer and knows all kind of sorrow, pain, lament and madness, he takes in all kind of poisons to receive the essence and reach the unknown.  
  
After writing this his masterpiece, he joined the Foreign Legacy, then deserted and became a gunrunner and trader in Africa. He totally abandoned writing and never again wrote something else than letters to his family until his death in 1891.  
  
I highly recommend his poetry. You will find some of his verses and texts in this fic though. I fell in love with his poetry when I was 14 and it never ceases to amaze me, how his words touch me in my innermost self. Arthur has accompanied me for 10 years now. And he is - like Toulouse says in my story – a real bohemian and real child of the revolution!  
  
I´m giving my own translations, for I have only a French edition. Correct me, if you like.  
  
Last but not least, do me a favour: forget Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm cringing at the thought of Arthur looking like him…  
  
Elle est retrouvée!  
  
Quoi? – l´Èternité.  
  
C´est la mer mêlée  
  
Au soleil.  
  
She is found anew  
  
Who? – Eternity.  
  
It's the sea mingled  
  
With the sun.  
  
  
  
3  
  
4 Prologue  
  
It had been a year since Satine´s death. Christian, still the penniless writer had finally managed to put down their story in words. It had taken much of an effort to get up from his bed where he had spent his days and nights in an absinth-daze, mourning over the loss of his lover. He stared at the last lines he had just written down:  
  
The greatest thing you'll ever learn  
  
Is just to love and be loved in return.  
  
He sighed and leaned back in is chair, suddenly a heavy weight had been lifted from his chest. He had owed it to Satine to write down their story and now that he did it, he suddenly felt much better. The pain was still present, but it was not so burning, so all-consuming, so eating-up, more a dull stabbing in his heart, as if the pain was a distant memory itself.  
  
He still loved her and he would never stop loving her, his sparkling diamond, his courtesan, his Satine. He still felt the loss of not having her by his side, but suddenly his life didn't seem so senseless after all. He had loved and he had been loved back. He should be happy for he had known love and love had known him.  
  
And now, after a year of mourning, a year of sleepless nights in tears and days in a alcoholic daze, he finally had found the strength to fulfil the second promise he had made that dreadful opening night of "Spectacular, Spectacular!".  
  
He would fulfil this promise he had given her too. He would go on with his life. 


End file.
